Conditioning an Amendment to Infringement Contentions Upon Payment of Attorney Fees was an Improper Sanction As There Was No Evidence of Bad Faith

The court vacated the grant of summary judgment and remanded where court conditioned the plaintiff’s amendment to Local Rule infringement contentions on payment of accused infringer’s attorney fees. The payment of fees represented a sanction, and, pursuant to Ninth Circuit precedent, sanctions are only permissible where there is a finding of badfaith. Here, there was no finding of bad faith.